Katie Agustien

Name: Caitlyn "Katie" Jasmine Agustien

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Grade: Senior

School: George Hunter High School

Hobbies and Interests: Boxing, exercising, maths, jogging, listening to and creating techno and chiptune music

Appearance: Katie easily stands out in a crowd, not least thanks to her standing taller than many of her classmates at 6’0" and weighing in at 160lbs, with that weight largely comprised of muscle. She has a physique that clearly shows she’s used to physical activity; she’s very noticeably toned, particularly in her muscular arms, and possesses very little fat. Katie isn’t shy about showing this off, although aside from that and her actual boxing matches, she prefers to avoid the spotlight.

Katie is mixed race, with an African-American mother, and a Canadian father. This gives her a light-brown skin tone. Despite living in Chattanooga for the majority of her life, she still retains a strong Bostonian accent. She always seems to have a number of cuts, scratches and bruises on various parts of her body, mostly from jogging or practice bouts, but occasionally from simply not paying enough attention to her surroundings.

Katie’s hair is straight and dark brown, almost black in appearance, and is generally kept at a medium length, just about reaching her shoulders. Her fringe is messily swept to the right, mostly covering her right eye. However, when boxing or doing any sort of exercise, Katie ties her hair back into a ponytail or occasionally a bun. Katie’s eyes are hazel in colour, and she forgoes makeup the majority of the time; the rare occasions she has worn it have been at fancy dinners, either for dates or to celebrate boxing victories. She has a heart-shaped face, but aside from her small button nose, none of her facial features are particularly standout. She has an average sized mouth with heavy lower lips, and although her ears are a little smaller than normal, they’re normally hidden under her hair. Katie pierced her ears two years ago, although she quickly found removing her earrings a hassle, and wasn’t enamoured with how they looked either. As such, she hasn’t worn earrings of any sort for a year now, and the holes in her ears are beginning to close over. Overall, Katie is considered decently attractive by a decent portion of her peers, mostly due to her muscular, athletic build.

Katie’s choice in clothing reflects her sporty lifestyle. She generally wears tank tops, basketball jerseys, jackets, shorts and tracksuit bottoms, although she’ll occasionally wear hoodies and jeans depending on how she’s feeling or on the weather. When Katie was abducted, she was wearing a slightly baggy light blue sleeveless hoody, over a plain white tank top. She also wore a pair of grey tracksuit bottoms and a battered pair of white Nike trainers.

Biography: The middle child of Henri Sharpe, a high school maths teacher, and Aisha Sharpe, a journalist, Katie was born in Boston and spent the first eight years of her life there. She spent a lot of her childhood around her older brother Marlon, now 22, and later looking after her younger brother James, who is 14. James generally keeps himself to himself even more so than Katie, so the two have a generally cordial relationship, but she’s much closer to her mother and older brother, although as Marlon has left home, she doesn’t see him that often.

Katie was a fairly normal child, although slightly more adventurous and fond of climbing things than others her age. She wasn’t especially outgoing, but managed to get on just fine with the other kids. Making friends had never been a problem for Katie, but outside of that, she struggled, at school and at home. Katie was, and still is to this day, terrible at motivating herself to get things done. She would often complete one or two questions of her homework, then lose all interest in it and hand it in unfinished. She rarely paid attention in class, either, and would spend many lessons doodling on the corner of a page instead. This, obviously, caused concern amongst her teachers. They could see she wasn’t dumb, as proved by the rare occurrence Katie pushed herself forwards in her schoolwork, and she was rarely the worst in the class, but she always fell far below the grades she should have been reaching. Her parents tried to encourage her on several occasions, and Katie would have a brief burst of productivity afterwards, but would soon fall back to her usual ways.

This lack of motivation continued outside of school. Katie attempted to join several clubs over the years, but none of them managed to hold her interest. Many of them were of the physical nature, such as hockey, track and dancing, but after just a few lessons, Katie’s interest in them would wane and vanish. Henri and Aisha were concerned with this, but didn’t want to force Katie into doing anything she didn’t want to.

What did not help Katie’s lack of motivation for anything she tried her hand at was Henri accepting a new role at a high school in Chattanooga when she was 8, one that was a lot more lucrative than his job in Boston. Whilst Katie didn’t consider herself particularly close to any of her classmates at the time, after a couple of weeks in Chattanooga, she realised she missed them a lot. Unfortunately, instead of her loneliness manifesting into a drive to make new friends and grow closer to her classmates, it seemed to trigger her apathy and lack of motivation even harder. She was withdrawn and avoided contact with her peers at school, giving them one or two-word responses if they attempted to talk to her, giving them little incentive to carry on talking to her or befriend her. Katie quickly grew distressed at her lack of friends and her struggles in the classroom. Aisha continued to do her best to help these issues, gently pushing Katie to participating in clubs or setting up playdates and the like with the few friends Katie did gain. Henri’s help, however, was much more limited. The best house they had found in their price range was about a half hour away from the high school he worked at by public transport. He would leave early in the morning and return late in the evening, exhausted and wanting little to do but relax in front of the television with a glass of wine. At the weekends, the majority of Henri’s time was taken up with grading papers and scheduling his lesson plan for the week. Katie grew to resent him for this, feeling like he couldn’t care less about her worries, and a rift opened up between the two of them.

The step up to high school served to help Katie’s lack of friends massively. Although she had originally intended to go to the same high school that her father worked at, the newly opened George Hunter High School was much closer to home, and all of her friends and most of her classmates were enrolling there, so Katie did as well. Moving up to a much bigger school was nerve-wracking enough for most of the freshmen, but the lack of legacy within George Hunter made things even worse. There was no knowledge passed down over the years of which teachers were nice and which should be avoided, for example, so Katie found that, for the first week or so of her freshman year, most of her classmates were just as subdued and quiet as she was. She pledged to turn this into a fresh start, and managed to integrate herself into social groups as the students eased into life at George Hunter High, making many more friends than she had at middle school. She still struggled greatly to motivate herself in class, and there were a number of her previous classmates who were wary of getting close to her due to her quiet and aloof nature at middle school, but overall, she grew a lot happier throughout her time at George Hunter.

Perhaps because of her lack of motivation, despite it being her biggest hobby and the one she enjoys the most, Katie only started boxing four years ago. Growing up with two brothers meant she was more open to play fighting as a child, but she’d never been exceptionally fond of physical activity. However, Marlon was a huge fan of boxing and wrestling, although he’d never found time to pursue it himself. On one occasion when he was planning to watch a local boxing match, he noticed Katie was, as usual, completely bored. On a whim, he asked her if she wanted to join him, and seeing nothing better to do, Katie agreed.

There was something about the match that hooked Katie, something that grabbed her attention and made her invested in the sport. She began to watch matches on TV, and soon began to ask her mother whether she could take up classes. The decision surprised Aisha, as she’d assumed Katie only had an interest as a spectator, and slightly concerned her due to the physical nature of boxing. However, it was clear that the sport had hooked Katie like little else had and Aisha took her to a boxing club with classes specifically catered for women. Katie was excited but nervous at first, feeling slightly self-conscious and worried that she would be the only beginner. These worries turned out to be unfounded, however, and with each class, Katie grew more and more confident in her boxing.

Henri was not a fan of Katie’s new hobby. He considered the sport a brutal, unpleasant one, and unfitting for his daughter to participate in; he would never admit it out loud, but he was firmly of the belief that women did not belong in combat sports. He had always been keen for his children to follow more academic pursuits, and was of the opinion that boxing was as far from that as possible. Although he never actively discouraged her from participating in boxing classes and training to start off with, he would often mention how much he would prefer if she’d do some other sport, and that this wasn’t directed solely at her, but at Marlon and James as well. Katie had already tried out a few other clubs in the past, but none of them had held her interest for very long. Fortunately, Aisha and Marlon more than made up for Henri’s lack of support. Aisha could clearly see that boxing was one of the few things her daughter was truly invested in, whilst Marlon encouraged Katie as he’d never taken the chance of doing any sort of sport in his teens.

Although she didn’t like how negative Henri was towards her boxing, Katie has always wanted to please and impress her parents. Whilst she still struggled to find motivation for her school subjects, she tried to push herself to do better at them, with maths in particular being her focus. In part, Katie assumed it would please her dad the most to do well at the subject he taught, but it also helped that she was fairly adept at the subject anyway, and found an honest enjoyment in the fact she was successful at it. To this day, she always manages to finish her maths homework first, no matter when it’s due in.

Katie joined the boxing club at school, a much smaller affair than her out-of-school one, but the important factor was that it allowed her to continue doing the thing she loved. She began to go to the gym, keeping a regular schedule going through the knowledge it would help in her boxing, and she also started jogging, short distances at first, but getting increasingly longer. Katie listens to music whilst she jogs, and before she started, she had a couple of techno songs on her iPod. However, she realised that the fast paced, high tempo nature of the music kept her own energy up, and she began to listen to it more and more, outside of jogging as well. Her favourite artists include Madeon, deadmau5, and a whole host of other artists she’s discovered online or from friends.

An idea has recently formed in Katie’s mind, relating back to her like for techno music. She decided it might be an interesting idea to try and create some music of her own, and so downloaded a few music making programs, such as Reaper, for this. She will be the first to admit she’s not very good at it; she’s still learning her way around the program, and she has no prior musical background. The ever-present lack of motivation sometimes hits her as well, losing interest on a project partway through. She does still enjoy it, even with, or possibly because of, its difficulties, and it also introduced Katie to chiptune music, after searching through YouTube for some inspiration. Katie liked the unique sound it provided, and thought it sounded easier to produce than what she’d been attempting. Several tracks from artists like FantomenK and Bossfight have made their way onto her iPod since then.

At school, Katie is generally quiet, and prefers to stay out of the limelight, but is perfectly friendly to anyone who’ll approach her. As such, alongside her friends from the boxing club, Katie’s circle of friends is fairly small but close. Unfortunately, Katie has also had to deal with a number of taunts and jokes over the years, mostly about her being a boxer, and generally revolve around accusations of her being a lesbian. The first few times this occurred hurt Katie the most, so unaccustomed was she to it. She would bottle her frustration and annoyance at them away and keep a calm, unconcerned face, but unfortunately, this led to her exploding over much smaller things at later dates, yelling at someone generally completely undeserving.

Adding to Katie’s issues with dealing with anger in a healthy and effective way was a revelation she came to around two years ago. She had never felt any attraction to boys, and for many years she assumed that this was just a phase that all girls went through, so paid it no mind. However, time passed, and she continued to hold absolutely zero attraction to boys; her friends would occasionally discuss their celebrity crushes and Katie would be forced to pluck the first male celebrity name that came to mind. She realised she actually was a lesbian, which caused a great deal of internal conflict for a while, particularly the fact that she still felt hurt and offended when people called her a lesbian or a dyke’ in the corridors; in her mind, it didn’t make sense that she was getting upset over something she actually was. It took a few months, within which her outbursts and lashes of anger were particularly severe, for her to rationalise that her aggressors were using the idea of being a lesbian as an insult and something she should be ashamed of being. Katie has been more and more out with her sexuality over the past two years, helped by the fact that many of her classmates were maturing and no longer using terms such as ‘gay’ as a catchall insult. She’s been to several pride events, is a member of the school’s Gay/Straight Alliance, and has managed to work up the courage to ask a few girls out on dates.

Recently, Katie has been to therapy and anger management courses, in order to try and help her healthily shut out, ignore, and deal with any insults or taunts that come her way, which is helping a great deal. She does occasionally, however, slip back into her previous ways; bottling her anger up rather than shutting it out. What she has gotten a lot better at is managing to avoid releasing her anger by yelling at undeserving people, and has instead tried her hardest to channel it into her boxing or exercise regimes instead, a technique that has paid off wonderfully this past year. She has lashed out at almost nobody thus far, and the few times it has happened have been because she was provoked. On top of that, Katie has entered a relationship, of sorts, with her classmate, Saffron Fields; she’s not exactly sure where they stand, in terms of being girlfriends, but she has serious feelings for her, and believes Saffron to feel the same way in return.

Unfortunately, she's also developed a much less healthy way of calming down on top of that. Katie is no stranger to party drugs, alcohol or cigarettes, partaking in them whenever she does get invited to parties or gatherings. It is the latter that she has started to use more and more frequently as a means of relaxing and calming down whenever she gets too stressed at home or during the weekends. Katie recognises just how unhealthy smoking is for her, especially considering she wishes to pursue boxing full-time, but it is unfortunately also very effective at reducing her stress for the time being. She has managed to hide this habit from her family, keeping her cigarette cartons hidden inside of her gym bag or boxing gloves, or other locations that no-one but her is likely to check.

At school, Katie still struggles to find motivation in most of her subjects. She never skips classes or repeatedly forgets to do assigned work at home, but she does do it to the lowest possible standard without failing, and her contribution in class is limited. Katie does get good grades in PE, though, and her adeptness at maths and interest in composing music means she has average to above-average marks in those subjects.

Katie still gets on fantastically with Aisha, Marlon and James, but her relationship with Henri has completely gone off the rails. She actively despises her father, and feels as though the sentiment is returned on his part. Katie recently decided she was going to attempt to pursue boxing full-time, rather than going to college to get a mathematics degree, and Henri’s attitude towards the sport changed from him subtly mentioning he would prefer her to participate in other hobbies to open hostility and disapproval of it. He refuses to come to any of Katie’s matches, and if the conversation at home turns to that of boxing, he’ll leave the room. Whilst he’s never said anything derogatory about Katie’s sexuality, he’s also never been particularly supportive of it, and she personally believes that it’s only a matter of time before he says something inflammatory about LGBT people.

Advantages: Katie’s most obvious advantage is her strength and fitness; her exercise regimes have given her a lot of energy and stamina, and she also packs a mean punch through her boxing. Although her circle of friends isn't particularly large, Katie is very close to those friends she does have, and is almost certain to find allies in fellow members of the boxing club and Gay/Straight alliance. Katie has learnt to try and shut out taunts and jeers over the years, meaning that she is unlikely to snap or act irrationally if anyone attempts to get a rise out of her or threaten her; at least, not initially.

Disadvantages: However, Katie still hasn't quite mastered the ability to deflect all taunts and jibes rather than bottling her anger up just yet. If she is put under too much stress, she is liable to release it all at a much later date, often exploding for something small and not worth getting worked up over. If this happens on the island, she could alienate allies, or worse, lose her temper in a tense and dangerous situation. Katie will also have no outlets for her anger on the island, as she will have no access to either nicotine or her punching bag. Katie also struggles to get motivated when it comes down to things that aren’t boxing or related to it; at her worst, she struggles to find the motivation to get up and move, and abandons projects she's halfway through completing. This could easily manifest in her giving up on plans at the first sign of them going wrong, which could also have the effect of demoralising any allies she might have with her.

Designated Number: Female Student No. 35

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Designated Weapon: The World's Sharpest Knife™

Conclusion: Well, that's not going to end well. I mean, it will for us, but not for you, or anybody around you. - Jim Greynolds

'The above biography is as written by Pippin. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Pippin

Kills: None

Killed By: Erika Stieglitz

Collected Weapons: The World's Sharpest Knife™ (assigned weapon)

Allies: Forrest Quin, Dane Lennox, Meilin Zhou, Saffron Fields

Enemies: 

Mid-game Evaluation: 

Post-Game Evaluation: 

Memorable Quotes:

Threads
Below is a list of threads containing Katie, in chronological order.

V7 Pregame: The Trip: V7:
 * V for Vend-etta
 * Flames on the Blue
 * he let me set fire to a fleet of ships when no-one else would
 * Monachopsis
 * Glitter and Gold
 * Room 818: is a G҉ A҉ N҉ G҉
 * Rise Great Undead Lord Dread
 * Skin Feels Off
 * ieatnothing
 * I've been waiting for that kind of lie, satisfaction guaranteed
 * Tempest of Seasons
 * Zero Sum

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Katie Agustien. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''
 * Katie is interesting as a character whose story is, by and large, very tightly focused. While a lot of V7 kids sprawl, for Katie it's fairly easy to isolate her most important relationship (Saffron) and her most important point of conflict (her rashness and anger) even before the end of Pregame. These two pieces remain the center of her character and story heading into the island, which is good; it means that she has a pretty continuous flow all the way through.

Better still, she and Saffron actually have nice chemistry. I think it helps that we progress from a chance innocuous meeting to a budding friendship, and that there are some other things thrown in (though I'd say that Katie's trip to the caverns is otherwise not her strongest showing, not really through anyone's fault, but because any thread where a bunch of characters awkwardly bump into each other by chance at some out of the way landmark is facing an uphill battle from the word go). The one thing I do wish, however, was that we got just a little more time and space to explore Katie's and Saffron's relationship in its later stages; we see it begin to blossom, but by the time they're in-game, it feels like they're a well-established couple who are much more comfortable with each other, and I think having even just one scene of that status quo, perhaps on the trip, would've helped build the stakes and urgency.

In any event, in-game Katie starts out with Forrest, Meilin, and Erika, which means that despite being a boxer with a hair-trigger temper she's secretly the second nicest person present. Forrest loses her bag over the edge of a cliff, Erika dips, and the crew picks up Dane Lennox and sets out in search of Forrest's lost stuff. It's solid, but perhaps the most interesting thing about this thread comes from the unconventional choice to have Erika convey a secret message to Katie but to not let the reader in on the contents of this communication. On a conceptual level, I love this; it immediately signals to an astute reader that not all is as it seems (because if it was truly innocuous, it would be related directly in-scene instead of withheld), while maintaining suspense as to what precisely is wrong. On an execution level, it's pretty solid but I feel that, perhaps due to the novel nature of the device in SOTF, it's actually given just a bit too much prominence, lessening the surprise when it comes out just how nefarious the secret is.

From here, the bag-search group meanders aimlessly for the first couple days. This is a plot that is also full of deception; Forrest is secretly and subtly using everyone else to her own ends without caring a whole lot for them, though this is pretty under the surface still at this point. The one problem here is that that makes the plotline The Forrest Show, since everyone else is mostly just fumbling about in the dark. I think the timing was somewhat unfortunate for Katie, as while her frustration and desire to go in search of Saffron build nicely, she's an active character and having little real momentum to use works against her.

This became a particular issue because the rolls had it in for Katie, hitting her in fully half of the first six cycles and sticking just after she and Saffron finally unite. It's a shame, too, because what comes next is the highlight of both girls' stories. The chemistry between the two is strong, particularly as it's challenged; Katie's encounter with Ty serves as payoff to the Erika enigma but also to her rash nature, as Saffron is finally able to get through to her and get her to take a step back. It's a powerful moment for all three, and it's especially nice as a pivot in morality, bringing direct contrast to the next scene, in which Erika lures the girls into a trap using an unfortunate bystander as bait and then murders both of them from afar, as they're powerless to resist. It's chilling, tragic, and unexpected, a betrayal that has some real weight behind it and a canny narrative beat to send them out on. I don't think it's an ending that will be forgotten anytime soon. - MurderWeasel